Union win Leagues Cup group with 1-1 tie vs. Mexico’s Cruz Azul

The Union tied Mexico’s Cruz Azul, 1-1, on Sunday at Subaru Park in their final Leagues Cup group stage game. Dániel Gazdag scored in the 88th minute to grab the tie after Cruz Azul’s Carlos Rotondi opened the scoring in the 41st.

The result meant that the Union won their group with a 1-0-1 record and 4 points. They will host CF Montréal in the round of 32 on Friday at Subaru Park, at a time to be announced.

There was a penalty-kick shootout after regulation ended because all Leagues Cup group games end that way by rule. Cruz Azul won it, going 5-for-5 after Gazdag missed the Union’s opener. But it didn’t really matter, because the Union had first place wrapped up no matter the shootout’s result.

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The Union mostly ran backward against one of Mexico’s traditional powers. Cruz Azul’s 17-4 advantage in shots (including 12-2 in the first half) included Alexis Gutiérrez’s 25-yard blast off the left post in the 20th minute, and a triple chance in the 28th that La Maquina (as the team is nicknamed) really should have finished.

Mikael Uhre came closest for the Union with a close-range header off Tai Baribo’s cross in the 32nd that Cruz Azul goalkeeper Kevin Mier dove to get a hand on. The rebound then hit Gazdag before going out, so the Union didn’t get a corner kick from it.

Rotondi finally broke the deadlock at the end of a sweeping cross-field move. Olivier Mbaizo had moved toward the middle of things to try to cut passes off but got caught when the ball went behind him. Rotondi ran into the space from the left wingback spot of Cruz Azul’s 5-3-2 formation and shot first-time to Andre Blake’s far post.

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Union manager Jim Curtin made his first two substitutions in the 64th minute, sending Sam Adeniran in for Uhre and Leon Flach in for Alejandro Bedoya. Jesús Bueno was next to enter, replacing Mbaizo in the 82nd. Quinn Sullivan, who had started on the left side of central midfield, moved to right back for a spell.

It didn’t seem like the Union would end up with a goal, but they got one out of nowhere. Adeniran high-pressed Mier and centerback Gonzalo Piovi into a turnover, then Sullivan jumped on the loose ball and crossed it quickly. Mierspilled it on arrival, Gazdag seized it, and contorted himself enough to push in a shot from near the end line.

Jakob Glesnes came in for Sullivan at the start of stoppage time, potentially with an eye on the penalty kicks. He ended up not being needed for that, but he and Damion Lowe did the job to clinch the tie, which is all that really mattered.

It should be taken as a given these days that in a continental competition, the refereeing could become an issue. That shouldn’t be the case, but it is, and the Union have been around long enough now that it shouldn’t be surprising.

Jorge Camacho Peregrina, a Mexican with some experience in Liga MX and the country’s youth leagues, was the man in the middle Sunday, and he called 23 fouls: 13 against the Union and 10 against Cruz Azul. They were accompanied by seven yellow cards, four to the Union and three to the Cruz Azul.

Peregrina also let quite a bit go, and that came to a head in the 58th minute. Baribo and Lorenzo Faravelli got into it, Baribo nearly had Faravelli in a headlock at one point, and Faravelli responded by shoving Baribo over.

A mass gathering ensued, but neither Baribo nor Faravelli was booked. Gazdag and Rotondi were instead, for being part of the fracas.

Notably, Peregrina wasn’t originally supposed to be this game’s center ref. Selvin Brown, a Honduran, was originally assigned the job but couldn’t get to town because of the thunderstorms that hit the Philadelphia region on Saturday.

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The biggest takeaway from the night was that the overwhelming majority of the crowd was Cruz Azul fans. They had themselves a time, with songs and olé chants as their team passed the ball around. The noise when Rotondi scored was as loud as Subaru Park has been at any Union game in a while.

Cruz Azul fans also offered renditions of an infamously homophobic insult during Union goal kicks as early as the seventh minute. By the third instance, stadium staff played music over the public address system so that viewers on the television broadcast could think it wasn’t happening.

It also bears nothing that some Union fans offered their own derogatory insult during Cruz Azul goal kicks. No music was played in those instances.

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